Yeast leavened baked dough products marketed today, as a general rule, normally contain about 500 mg of sodium ion per 100 grams of product. This amount is imparted to the dough products primarily through the addition of sodium chloride to the dough mixture during the making of the dough product. There may be departures from this amount in different products, both up and down, but it can be stated that, in general, baked dough products marketed today contain about 2 parts of sodium chloride or salt per 100 parts of flour or 2% Bakers Percentage of sodium chloride. This amount of salt or sodium chloride has generally been found satisfactory to provide the necessary taste benefits or salty taste that is required for the baked dough products to be salable. Moreover, besides the important flavor function, the salt or sodium chloride also has effects upon the colloidal properties of the dough ingredients during the bread production as well as upon the biological properties such as the fermentation by yeast and the growth or retardation of indigenous organisms. Sodium ions to a small extent are also incorporated in the baked dough products by the flour used as well as other dough additions, such as yeast foods, water, milk, mold inhibitors and virtually every other ingredient employed making up the dough composition. However, to reiterate, the greater amount of the sodium ion present in the baked dough product results from the addition of sodium chloride or salt to the dough during its formulation.
Baked dough products, such as, for example, bread, which are made without sodium chloride or salt are not new. Such baked dough products are commonly produced throughout the country by bakeries as a specialty item for a limited clientele which, for medical reasons, is required to be on salt-free or salt-restricted diets. Such bakeries can, by modifying the dough-making procedures, produce attractive appearing baked dough products as well as overcoming the technical functions of the sodium chloride or salt in the dough production. However, the bakeries in producing salt-free baked dough products have not been able to satisfactorily solve the seasoning or salt taste requirements essential for such baked dough products. Baked dough products without the salt flavor or taste are tastelessly bland and would be totally unacceptable to the average consumers.
It is also a recognized fact that consumers, customarily as a general rule, by their eating habits, ingest a far greater amount of sodium ions, largely as sodium chloride or salt, than is necessary to meet physiological needs or requirements from a health standpoint. As a result of this excessive and unnecessary consumption of the sodium ions by the average individual, many health problems to an individual have been created. For example, it has been reported that excessive consumption of sodium ions is a factor in the causation of intrinsic hypertension. Since baked dough products such as bread are consumed by virtually all individuals as a part of their daily diet, it would therefore be highly desirable for medical and health reasons to provide baked dough products that possessed a material reduction in the amount of sodium ions present therein.
Over the years and continuing to the present time, considerable time, effort and money has been expended to produce a material that would function as a substitute for sodium chloride or salt that could be employed with or in food products and which would satisfy the saline taste requirements of the food and yet impart no bad taste or after-taste to the food and at the same time reduce the sodium ion content. A great deal of such prior activity has been devoted to the production of a salt substitute product adapted to be applied to the food from a salt shaker just prior to consuming same. Such prior products proposed as a substitute for sodium chloride or salt, to a great extent, have been based on the use of potassium chloride as a complete or partial substitute for sodium chloride or in combination with other compounds. Also, other chlorides, such as, for example, choline chloride, ammonium chloride, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, and the like, usually in combination with other compounds, have also been proposed and tried as a substitute for sodium chloride. Illustrative of prior efforts made heretofore to produce sodium chloride or salt substitutes are the following patents, such patents being basically shaker-adapted products for direct application to foods or for use in treating meats. Such patents are U.S. Pat. No. Re. 27,981; U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,874,055; 2,471,144; 2,500,919; 2,601,112; 2,742,366; 2,806,793; 2,824,008; 2,829,056; 2,910,369; 2,966,416; 2,968,566; 3,104,171; 3,272,593; 3,306,753; 3,447,932; 3,505,082; 3,514,296; 3,524,747; 3,775,543; 3,782,974; 3,782,975; 3,860,732; 4,066,793; 4,066,799; 4,068,006; 4,216,244; 4,243,691; and 4,340,618.
While many of such prior attempts heretofore proposed may produce salt or sodium chloride substitutes which may function satisfactorily to some degree in shaker-type salt seasonings and perhaps in other food such as meats, such salt substitutes have been found to be totally unsatisfactory when employed as an additive compound in producing baked dough products.
It has been found that when prior salt substitutes of the type hereinbefore mentioned were employed in the making of baked dough products, such products were totally unsatisfactory. For example, the use of the chlorides other than sodium, alone or in various combinations, at the necessary minimum amount of about 1.5% bakers percentage required to give the baked dough produced a salt-like taste, invariably imparted to the baked dough product a bitter and thoroughly disagreeable taste as well as an objectionable after-taste. As a result, up to the present time, there has not been a completely satisfactory material available for use as a sodium chloride or salt substitute in the making of baked dough products in which the baked dough product will have a completely satisfactory salt taste and, at the same time, will have no bitter or otherwise objectionable taste or after-taste.
Further, with respect to baked dough product, such as, for example, bread, it is an accepted fact that the sodium ion content present in the bread is primarily imparted thereto by the sodium chloride or salt added during the bread making procedure. However, it is also a known fact that sodium ions, although low in concentration, are also present in many other ingredients employed as additives or components of the ultimally produced bread. Such additional sodium ions are not in chloride form and cannot be practically removed from the dough composition. As a result, a sodium-free baked dough product is, for all practical purposes, a commercial impossibility. This has led the United States Food and Drug Administration to define a bread product which has a sodium ion concentration of 75% less than the sodium ion concentration of normal bread, i.e., less than 125 mg/100 gms., as "sodium-reduced" bread. Thus, to this end, the present invention is directed to the production of "sodium-reduced" baked dough products such as bread. However, it is essential in the production of baked dough products having a reduced sodium content that such baked dough products must also possess a saltiness taste comparable to the salty taste possessed by baked dough products containing sodium chloride.